Taking the bad with the good

Many years ago I was a Linn dealer. We referred to the Linn folks as "The Linn Gestapo". As a dealer, it was almost impossible to deal with these snobs and it was a happy day when we discontinued the line. Everyone else we dealt with
Conrad-Johnson, Acoustat, DCM, Denon, Bryston, KEF, Threshold, etc. were a pleasure.

I have heard a system consisting of Krell's current top of the line CD player/preamp, an FPB 300 and Sonus Faber Amati Heritage speakers that sounded like the left channel was down 20db, with no bass below 100hz, and no life at all. This was in a chain hi fi store which has picked up a few high end lines to try to get into that market. The poor Sumiko rep was there demoing the system for us. After a number of cuts one of our club members broached the subject if the speakers always sounded like this, at which point the rep said no, this was the worst setup he'd ever had with them! The room was the main culprit--walls of thin plasterboard that flexed if you breathed on them, no real space to bring the speakers away from the left sidewall, and no real room treatments. He'd tried for two hours to rearrange things to get them to sound decent, but to no avail. A real pity, those speakers are drop-dead gorgeous, and I'm sure that they must be well-designed and sound good from other SF models I've heard, but I've heard Bose systems give that setup a run for its money!

My post was not meant to single out Linn or any other specific manufacturer. It was meant to show that, even with the "assuredness" of knowing that the components "should" have worked together, they didn't. Whether this was from poor speaker positioning, AC problems, poor choice of cables, etc... is anyone's guess.

The fact that Linn is a "full-range" manufacturer and was able to produce a system from source to speakers with all of the amplification and cables in between shows just how "hard" system set-up and tuning can be. The fact that they did not have to rely on any outside vender or another manufacturer to bring support components does somewhat lower my opinion of their products though. After all, i can understand multiple companies bringing different products together to form a system and one of the companies bringing a product that is not up to snuff. Obviously, one weak link in the chain can kill the total performance of the entire system. As such, i can understand several manufacturers being let down by another "bad apple" that didn't plan ahead. Such situations are simply out of their control and end up hurting several companies that may otherwise have most excellent products.

While i do not "discredit" that things are rushed in terms of set-up and very poor AC, i have heard systems that were quite good that were operating under the same conditions that everyone else shared. This tells me that manufacturers either don't care about their products under actual use conditions or that they really don't know how to make a system "sing".

Personally, i would make SURE that a system that i was going to be demo'ing to thousands upon thousands of prospective customers over a short period of time was as well planned and operating at peak potential as is humanly possible. If this meant taking less than optimum AC into consideration and needing time to work with the system / room, so be it. How much more costly would it be to have employees that you are already paying doing a bit more work and effort to "make things right" prior to the actual showing ? I think that most of you feel as i do and wonder the same thing. After all, a "show" is to "show off" what you've got and can do. Would anyone ever think of taking a rotted old rust-bucket of a beater to a high profile industry sponsored car show ? I think not. In fact, i don't think that a manufacturer that REALLY cared about their product would bring anything less than a product that was "kick ass" and looked / played the part. Why is it that "hi-end" dealers / manufacturers think that they can get away with anything less ?

Unsound: My experience with the Classic Audio Reproductions and Atma-Sphere gear was at the same show i.e. Hi-Fi '99 here in Chicago. As i stated in a previous post, the demo that i attended received a standing ovation from a roomful of people. When the demo started, there was less than a quarter of a room and the excellent sound is what drew people into see what was going on.

Viridian: I have three SS 2 channel systems, one tube 2 channel system and an SS HT system. As i mentioned, the Linn presentation had little to do with personal taste. When 75% - 80% of the crowd disappeared after 3 - 10 minutes of music, that should tell you that something was VERY wrong. Sean
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Sean, we were obviously comparing different venues and at different times (years), the point of your thread rings even truer. I agree with your latest post as well, the only excuse I could grant the demostrators is that they were marketing a specific (new?) product at the expense of making a quality presentation in a room with the given acoustics, power, etc. available. Still a silly idea to my way of thinking.

Lugnut, you are thinking I believe, of what is known as the "Peter" principal.I think that Murphy's Law is something altogether different. I used to work for a guy who's name is Murphy and the "law" must have been written about this dolt! He is the owner of the business and he most certanly is incompetent as well! So both the "law" and the "principal" could fit in his case.